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Secret Tiananmen Square memoirs of Chinese party leader to be published

Former Communist chief denounces 1989 massacre and praises western-style democracy

guardian.co.uk
Thursday 14 May 2009 13.06 BST
Tania Branigan in Beijing

The secretly recorded memoirs of the Chinese Communist party leader who was ousted for sympathising with the students during the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square have been released four years after his death.  In tapes secretly recorded during his 16 years under house arrest, Zhao Ziyang, the former head of the Communist party, denounced the killing of protesters as a "tragedy", and challenged the party's subsequent rejection of democratic reforms.  The tapes were smuggled out of China and will be published in English and Chinese this month – as Prisoner of the State: The secret Journal of Zhao Ziyang – days before the 20th anniversary of the massacre.  In them, he praised western-style democracy and insisted that the activists were not attempting to overthrow the system, according to extracts obtained by Reuters.   more ...

Swine flu found on China mainland

China has confirmed the first case of swine flu on the Chinese mainland, and is searching for people who could have been in contact with the infected man.

BBC News
Monday, 11 May 2009 06:54 UK

The 30-year-old student, who has been named only as Mr Bao, had recently flown into the country from the US.  The authorities say he travelled from St Louis to Tokyo, then to Beijing and finally landed in Chengdu on Saturday.  Earlier this month China diagnosed a case of the H1N1 virus in a Mexican traveller in Hong Kong.    more ...

Words Censored by China’s Largest Search Engine

The Epoch Times
May 11, 2009

New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV) recently obtained a list of politically “sensitive” words monitored or censored by China’s largest Internet search engine, Baidu.com, as well as internal documents governing Baidu’s censorship operations. Topping the list is the phrase “Chinese Communist Party.” Phrases such as “withdrawing from the Communist Party” and “disintegrating the Communist Party” are also censored.

On May 4, NTDTV reported 13 categories of politically sensitive words, including those related to “counterrevolutionary” activities, human rights and appeals, the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Falun Gong, ethnic and race relations, military secrets, and organ harvesting.

Under the category of counterrevolutionary activities, censored phrases include “withdrawing from the Communist Party,” “end the rule of the Communist Party,” “dictatorship,” “one-party system,” “human rights in China,” “tyranny,” “ruling government,” and “brainwashing.”

In the Falun Gong category, other than words directly related to the practice, phrases such as “Nine Commentaries,” “The Epoch Times,” “Gao Zhisheng,” and “kidney harvesting from live people” are also on the list.

In addition, there is a special category for words related to the sale of harvested organs. This category shows the Communist Party’s fear of the consequences of harvesting Falun Gong practitioners’ organs while they are still alive.    more ...

Chinese director defies film ban

Controversial Chinese director Lou Ye will defy a five-year state ban on making films by premiering a new movie at the Cannes Film Festival.

BBC News
Monday, 11 May 2009 12:35 UK

Ye, 44, was given the ban in 2006 for screening epic love story Summer Palace at that year's Cannes festival without Chinese government permission.  Now Spring Fever, a story about love and homosexuality, is among 20 films competing for this year's Palme d'Or.  It was shot secretly with a handheld camera in China using five actors.  China's film censorship system must change - it must at least get rid of this provision of banning filming.

The film, made in two months in Nanjing city, tells the story of a wife's quest to spy on the passionate relationship between her husband and another man.  It could be his most controversial film yet because it deals with homosexuality in China - still a taboo subject in the country.    more ...

Chinese Corporations’ Profits Rise, Along With Discontent

Epoch Times
May 7, 2009

Chinese state-owned corporations are posting record profits, but the figures are not a cause for celebration by ordinary Chinese.

On April 19, Li Rongrong, the chairman of China’s State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) revealed that China’s 140-odd state-owned corporations had a joint profit of 665.3 billion RMB (US$97.4 billion) in 2008.

That includes profits of over US$16 billion by each of China’s top three corporations: China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China Mobile and Industrial, and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). Mr. Li revealed a total profit from these corporations of US$9.12 billion in March alone, an 85.7 percent increase on the previous month. To put these numbers in context, Chinese state media reported that the joint profit of U.S. fortune 500 companies was only US$98.9 billion in 2008, a record drop of 85 percent.

But savvy Chinese observers were far from impressed by the news, which was condemned in online forums by thousands of Chinese Internet users. The gist of the criticism was that the profits have nothing to do with innovative technology or optimized management, but rather to the state giving each corporation a monopoly and favorable regulations.    more ...

US jails China bankers for fraud

BBC News
Thursday, 7 May 2009 02:39 UK

Two former Bank of China managers and their wives have been given lengthy jail sentences in the United States for stealing $485m (£320m).

Xu Choafan, Xu Guojun, Kuang Wan Fang and Yu Ying Yi had also been convicted of passport fraud and of laundering the money through banks and casinos.

The Las Vegas court also ordered the four to pay back $482m.

Prosecutors said the convictions showed foreign nationals could not "live off their ill-gotten gains in the US".

Xu Chaofan and Xu Guojun were sentenced to 25 and 22 years respectively while their wives Kuang Wan Fang and Yu Ying Yi to eight years each.

The charges against the four included monetary transactions with stolen money, transportation of stolen money, passport fraud and visa fraud.    more ...

Chinese reveal child quake toll

China says 5,335 schoolchildren died or remain missing after last year's devastating Sichuan earthquake.

BBC News
Thursday, 7 May 2009 11:58 UK

It is the first time that Chinese authorities have given an official estimate for the number of children lost in the disaster.

The official number is far lower than other independent estimates, says the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Beijing.

The issue is sensitive because of accusations that many schools were poorly constructed.

When the earthquake struck, a disproportionate number of school buildings collapsed, our correspondent says.

Chinese officials made the announcement days before the 12 May anniversary of the disaster that killed up to 90,000 people.    more ...

Chinese Regime Restricts Media Reporting on Flu Cases

Epoch Times
By Lin Yi
Epoch Times Staff May 6, 2009

The Chinese regime imposed a restriction on media reports about H1N1 flu cases, requesting that all media follow its official reports using the excuse of avoiding a mass panic. Hong Kong media workers criticize China’s move, citing it’s a repeat of the SARS error in 2003.

Ms. Serenade Woo, project coordinator of the International Federation of Journalists (China and Hong Kong) worries that under such a restriction the public won’t get timely alerts. “It is a question mark, whether the information can reach the people in a fast, timely and accurate manner,” she said.   more ...

China On The Black List Again

Extract From the 2009 Annual Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

Click here to read the extract ...

Tiananmen: The flame burns on
Twenty years ago tanks rolled into Beijing's Tiananmen Square to crush the biggest pro-democracy movement in history. Hundreds were killed, thousands jailed and many fled to escape persecution. Here exiled leaders of the student revolution tell their remarkable stories and reveal how, after being forced to build new lives, they remain haunted by its bloody legacy

The Observer
Sunday 3 May 2009
Isabel Hilton

Over seven tumultuous weeks of nationwide demonstrations and protests, beginning with the death of the sacked reformer, Hu Yaobang, on 15 April 1989 and ending with the movement's violent suppression on 4 June, an estimated 100 million people across China demonstrated in support of political reform. The movement was inchoate, contradictory and politically confused but it remains the biggest peaceful pro-democracy movement in human history. For the millions who took part, life would never be the same again.

Last week I listened to a man in his 40s unburden himself of a secret he had carried for two decades. He was a student leader in a major provincial city, and although he was arrested in mid-June 1989, he was released after a month of enforced confessions. He moved to another city and eventually made a successful career. But for 20 years the burden of the hopes that were shattered on 4 June, and the apprehension that he could be targeted at any time by a regime that never forgets and rarely forgives, has weighed on his spirit. It is part fear, part depression, part rage.

Some are still in prison. Others, in mourning, are still harassed. A few campaign openly for a reversal of the Communist Party's verdict that the movement was the work of "a small clique of counter-revolutionaries" who wanted to overthrow the party and the socialist system. Behind the few high-profile campaigners and dissidents is the much larger throng of those who still nurse memories too painful to discuss.    more ...

China carries significant clout in modern world

Lancaster Eagle-Gazette
May 3, 2009

China has the largest population in the world - 1.3 billion people. That is equivalent to one-fifth of the world's population and nearly five times larger than the population of the U.S.
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China's land area is 3.6 million square miles, about 5 percent smaller than the U.S. Its per capita gross domestic product, which is value of all goods and services divided by the population, is $2,483 - 19 percent of the U.S.' per capita GDP.

On the surface, this per capita amount looks impressive for such a huge population, but it has a serious flaw. This number is the average between much higher-income residents along the Pacific Coast and very much lower-income inhabitants - peasants - in the agrarian inland. It is so grossly differentiated that it has the potential to cause major social unrest.

Is it possible for a stock exchange to exist in a communist country or is China no longer a communist country?

Following World War II, both China - under Mao Zedong - and Russia - under Josif Stalin - were fundamental communist countries. By the 1980s, Russia rapidly was moving away from Leninism, and is no longer a communist country. China implemented major political and economic reforms starting in 1976 under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, which continue into the present. But, unlike Russia, China remains a communist nation.   more ...

‘I Didn’t Know the Persecution was Coming’

Epoch Times
May 2, 2009
By Mickey Lam and Simon Veazey, Epoch Times Staff

Ten years ago, the name of Falun Gong was thrust into the media spotlight around the world, as 10,000 gathered at the Chinese central government compound. Two of those present on that day in 1999 talk to the Epoch Times about the significance of the event, often shrouded in misunderstanding and confusion.

Even at the time, it was regarded as a remarkable event, finding its way into newspapers, broadcasts and news bulletins around the world. The image of 10,000 people appealing near the central compound of China's leaders shocked people inside and outside China, evoking memories of the courage, scale, tensions and hopes of the Tiananmen Square incident just ten years before.

But the true historical significance of April 25th, 1999 was to be revealed months later, when it became apparent that the event had been manipulated by the head of the Communist Party to set in motion a campaign of violence, torture and persecution against 100 million people.
The appellants on that day ten years ago all had one thing in common: they practised the spiritual discipline of Falun Gong.   more ...

China moves to curb virus spread

China says it will quarantine all those who travelled on a flight from Mexico with a man suffering from swine flu, in a bid to curb the spread of the virus.

BBC News
Saturday, 2 May 2009 13:05 UK

The 25-year-old man flew to Hong Kong via Shanghai on Thursday, and was admitted to hospital.

Beijing said it would put his fellow passengers under week-long observation. It also suspended flights from Mexico.

The move came as South Korea confirmed a case of the virus, the second country in North-East Asia to do so.

Globally, 16 countries have now reported swine flu cases. Six countries have confirmed person-to-person transmission.

In cases outside Mexico, where the virus emerged, the effects do not appear to be severe.    more ...

Beijing battles with unauthorized TV

Asia Times
May 1, 2009
By Peter J Brown

Like the personal computer and the Internet, the satellite television dish represents both a significant threat and an important tool to the Chinese government. Last June, the new Zhongxing-9 (Chinasat-9) satellite was launched. It will allow the government to provide government-sponsored satellite TV services to millions of households for the first time, broadcasting dozens of standard-definition and high-definition TV channels to otherwise unserved areas throughout rural China.

According to Brendan Murray, market analyst in Space and Telecommunications at Maryland-based Futron Corp, Chinasat-9 distributes China Central Television (CCTV) channels as well aslocal/provincial channels as part of China's "Cuncuntong" project, which aims to deliver state-run radio and TV to as many as 60 million families who do not now enjoy high-quality terrestrial TV services. more ...

Strawberry in Beijing Wal-Mart Has 13 Pesticides

Cebtral News Agency
April 30, 2009

Hong Kong supermarkets dumped vegetable stocks amid a new food scare after environmental group Greenpeace accused grocery chains of selling produce tainted with dangerous levels of pesticides. (Antony Dickson/AFP/Getty Images)
Greenpeace recently reported a tremendous number of pesticides remaining on fruits and vegetables in supermarkets in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, China. One strawberry found in a Beijing Wal-Mart contained 13 pesticides.

According to Health Times, Greenpeace investigators went shopping in December 2008 and February 2009 and bought 1 kilogram (about 2.2 pounds) of each type of common fruits and vegetables, such as Chinese white cabbage, spinach, beans, bitter melon, cucumbers, tomatoes, and strawberries, which is approximately the daily intake of a family of three.    more ...

Communist General Reveals China's 38th Army Refused to March on Tiananmen Square

Epoch Times
Apr 28, 2009

According to an article published in the March issue of Open Magazine, at a public speech in Yunnan province, General Liu Yazhou [1] said that 38th Army Commander Xu Qianxian had refused to follow orders to lead his troops into Beijing on the eve of the June Fourth Tianamen Square Massacre.

Liu said that General Xu was a real military talent and related some of his experiences with General Xu during a military exercise. “He was sitting in a relaxed attitude, or lying in a tent when he was commanding his troops in good order. That is, he is able to direct and determine the outcome of a battle which may be thousands of miles away.”

During the June Fourth Movement, the Commander of Beijing Military Area Command Zhou Yibing met General Xu personally and requested him to lead his troops into Beijing. General Xu asked Zhou whether he had orders from the Military Commission of the Central Committee. Zhou answered “Yes.”

Then Xu asked again whether Zhou had orders from Deng Xiaoping. Zhou again answered “Yes.” Xu asked whether Zhou had orders from Yang Shangkun, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission. Zhou answered “Yes.” Then Xu asked whether Zhou had orders from Zhao Ziyang, first vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission. This time Zhou answered “No.”

General Xu then said I cannot follow the orders. (Note: Zhao Ziyang was ousted from power on the afternoon of the proclamation of martial law. General Xu knew well the answer to the question asked.) Zhou then hurled his accusation in Xu’s face, “Your wife is a judge. Your two sons are protesting in the Tiananmen Square! I know it.”

Liu said the 38th Army sympathized with the student demonstrators and so did the 28th Army because they were stationed in Beijing.

The 28th Army was marching into Tiananmen Square on the morning of June 4, 1989. Protesters and many citizens of Beijing constructed roadblocks to stop the military’s progress. On the way to Tiananmen Square, army commander He Yanran looked around and said, “Everywhere there is a green curtain of tall crops.” That means the PLA was regarded as Japanese enemies and the people were as many as tall crops. The political commissar replied to him, “One hundred thousand youths stand for one hundred thousand soldiers.” Vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, Liu Huaqing requested Air Force Commander Wang Hai to send a helicopter to shout propaganda to the 28th Army such as “Move forward! Move forward regardless of anything!” But the army commander had no ear for this order. more ...

Possible Carcinogenic Protein Found in Chinese Dairy Products

Epoch Times
Apr 28, 2009

China’s dairy industry is hit by another scandal following the melamine-tainted milk incident. a possible carcinogen, hydrolyzed leather protein, was found in many batches of dairy products produced by the Morning Garden dairy company in Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province.

According to City Express’s report on April 27, someone sent an anonymous letter exposing the Morning Garden’s illegal practice to boost the apparent protein content of its product by adding leather protein.   more ...

Handbook of Beijing City Department Stirs Up Public Anger

By Jiang Hehua
Voice of America Apr 26, 2009

On April 20, a post on Tianya Community Online ignited heated discussions on Chinese media and blogs. The post disclosed part of a training handbook for city management teaching its officers how to beat people without leaving any evidence.

“Leave No Blood After Beating”

The post titled “Shocking! City management manual.” quoted the manual, “Not to leave blood on the offender’s face or wounds on the offender’s body. Make sure no one is around. (The beating) should be done in one continuous movement that is short, agile, and leaves no room for a victim’s response. It must be clean and well-executed and never hesitate to use your whole strength.” In three days the post received over 4,000 responses.

According to Beijing Times, the official title of the manual is “City Management Law Enforcement Practical Manual,” which is written and edited by the City Management Training Material Development Division under the Beijing Municipal Management Bureau and Beijing Municipal Work Management Committee Training Center. The Manual was published in 2006 by the National Academy of Education Administration.

Robbery by order

Shuai Jianhua, a street vender in Shenzhen has experienced raids by city management officers many times. Shuai told VOA that the city management officers are using a more subtle and cunning method now. It only takes them five minutes to finish robbing a vendor. The media have no time to catch and report the incident.

“I once met a captain of the city management division. I asked him why the officers behave like this. He told me that they were not meant to confiscate, but to take away goods from street vendors like me and it is an order from the top,” said Shuai, “It’s robbery, public robbery.”   more ...

Falungong silent in China, thriving abroad

Asia Times
Apr 25, 2009
By Kent Ewing

HONG KONG - Over the past decade, China's leadership has stood up to a daunting array of challenges as the nation continued its rise as a world power. Remarkably, one of the largest has been an army of meditation and exercise addicts whose leader claims to have supernatural powers.

Ten years ago this week the Falungong, an organization devoted to a variety of the ancient practice of qigong or deep-breathing exercises, shook the Chinese government to its core. In the largest demonstration since the occupation of Tiananmen Square by student-led pro-democracy demonstrators in 1989, more than 10,000 Falungong practitioners gathered outside Zhongnanhai, the red-walled Communist Party headquarters in Beijing. There they demanded the release of 50 sect members who had been detained in the northern city of Tianjin and government recognition of the group as a legal entity.

Many of the demonstrators who amassed in the streets around the Zhongnanhai compound on April 25, 1999, were armed with the writings of their spiritual leader, Li Hongzhi, now 57, who lives in exile in the United States. Their protest was peaceful and painstakingly organized. That same night they returned to the buses that had carried them to the party's nerve center and went back - in some cases to distant provinces - from whence they came.

Chinese leaders, including then-president Jiang Zemin, were shocked by this demonstration of mass mobilization and defiance, especially as it came so close to the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Any group that could muster thousands of people in protest against the central government was destined to be banned, and within two months of its Zhongnanhai triumph, Falungong was denounced as an "evil cult" and prohibited from operating on the mainland, though the group still practices freely in Hong Kong.

Beijing also continued arresting - and, Falungong devotees abroad insist, torturing - members of the movement while at the same time launching a relentless propaganda campaign against its leader that continues today.    more ...

China school admits football scam

A Chinese principal has admitted that the school football team which won an international contest was stuffed with national squad players.

BBC News
April 24, 2009

Only three of the players actually attended Daping high school for girls in the south-western city of Chongqing, Chinese media said.

Principal Zhang Jianling has now made a public apology for the scandal.

The team won the trophy 12 days ago, beating a German team in the final. Officials say they will hand it back.

According to International School Sport Federation rules, all players taking part in the tournament must be enrolled at the school they are representing.

Reports said the team had been stacked with players from the national youth team and other top teams.    more ...

Falun Gong crackdown highlights religious freedom issue in China

USA Today
April 23, 2009
By Alexa Olesen, Associated Press

BEIJING — Now entering its second decade, China's relentless drive to obliterate the Falun Gong spiritual sect has left a human toll ranging from the deaths of followers in custody to the self-exile of others and the beatings of their lawyers.

Saturday marks the tenth anniversary of a protest by an estimated 10,000 practitioners in Beijing that alerted the communist government to the group's strength and wide appeal.

The April 25, 1999, demonstration was intended to show how Falun Gong believers had learned compassion, forbearance and tolerance, said practitioner Bu Dongwei in a telephone interview from the United States, where he fled six months ago.

But the size and discipline of those who gathered unsettled the communist leadership, ever wary of independent groups that could threaten its authority.

Two months later, the group was labeled an "evil cult" and banned, its leadership arrested, and a campaign launched to forcibly reconvert millions of believers. Anyone practicing Falun Gong or even possessing materials about it could be arrested.   more ...

China displays naval power, pledges peace

Vessels from U.S., 13 other nations review fleet, including nuclear subs

Associated Press via msnbc.com
April 23, 2009

QINGDAO, China - Chinese President Hu Jintao sought Thursday to reassure the international community over China's rising military strength before presiding over a naval display highlighting Beijing's ambitions of becoming a major sea power.

In remarks to U.S. and other foreign naval commanders, Hu repeated China's standard position that it would never threaten other nations or seek regional dominance.

China's military, including the fast modernizing navy, "will always be a force for the preservation of world peace and advancement of common development," Hu said.   more ...

China unveils its new naval clout

Asia Times
Apr 23, 2009
By Wu Zhong

HONG KONG - China will show off its nuclear-powered submarines for the first time in history on Thursday during a fleet parade to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the naval arm of the People's Liberation Army (PLAN).

The display of the country's most advanced submarines, as well as the parade itself which will feature 21 ships from 14 foreign countries including the United States and Russia, shows China's growing confidence in the rapid modernization of its navy.

The largest naval parade in the PLA's history is also a sign that Beijing is attaching increasing importance to the role of the navy, once considered the weakest of the three branches of the PLA. China's deployment of ships to the coast of Somalia to fight
pirates at the end of last year is regarded as a strategic change of the PLAN from a near-shore defensive force to a blue-water combat armada.

In an interview with the state-run Xinhua news agency, Vice Admiral Ding Yiping, PLAN's deputy commander, said the nuclear-powered submarines would appear at Thursday's fleet review in the northern port city of Qingdao.

"It is not a secret that China has nuclear submarines, which are key to safeguarding our country's national security," Ding said, adding that the number of China's nuclear submarines was far less than those of the US and Russia.

The 225,000-member PLAN operates up to 10 nuclear-powered submarines and as many as 60 diesel-electric vessels, more than any other Asian country. China's second-generation, nuclear-powered Jin- and Shang-class submarines are considered just a notch below cutting-edge US and Russian crafts.

Speculation has been rife as to whether President Hu Jintao, who will review the fleet parade in his capacity as chairman of the Central Military Commission, will take the opportunity to announce China's plan to build one or more aircraft carriers. A senior PLA official in Beijing said it was unlikely Hu would make the announcement. "It is no longer a secret that China wants to build aircraft carriers. There is no need to make a formal announcement on such things," said the official who declined to be named.

United States
chief of naval operations Admiral Gary Roughead downplayed concerns over China's plans for an aircraft carrier but said the US would like to have a better idea about the intentions behind China's naval modernization.    more ...

中国外商撤资逃债蔓延 逾半数夜半出逃

【正体版】 【打印机版】 【字号】大 中 小

【大纪元4月19日报导】（中央社台北19日电）中国最高人民法院副院长奚晓明表示，
外商撤资外逃及放弃企业逃债现象开始蔓延，逾半数外资选择“夜半出逃”方式。据统计，
去年2月至今年2月，法院受理这类案件数量同比上升19.62%。

香港“文汇报”报导，奚晓明日前指出，国际及中国宏观经济环境变化所引发的矛盾和纠纷，
在司法领域已经出现明显反映。

他认为，当前这类案件出现一些新的特点，如借款合同案件数量激增、买卖合同主动违约比例增大、
虚假贷款案件开始暴露、外商撤资外逃以及弃企逃债现象开始蔓延、企业改制遗留问题逐步暴露、
民营企业破产清算比例明显增多等。其中，逾半数外资选择“夜半出逃”方式。      http://epochtimes.com/gb/9/4/19/n2499781.htm

Foreign Capital Worries and Debt Dodging in China

Central News Agency
Apr 22, 2009

TAIPEI—Vice president of China's Supreme People's Court Xi Xiaoming said that more and more foreign capital are being withdrawn and many business owners that filed bankruptcy have fled from China to avoid debts. According to results from a survey, foreign capital related court cases increased 19.62 percent in February, compared to the same period last year.

Xi is quoted in Hong Kong’s "Wen Wei Po" stating that the conflicts and disputes caused by international and domestic macro-economic environmental changes have increased, and is clearly reflected in the judicial system.  Xi said the survey reveals the number of cases related to loans have increased dramatically. The portion of the cases involving intentional breach of contract increased as well. More fraudulent loan cases were reported.  more ...

Why Must This Two-Year Old Suffer?

The Epoch Times
By Ding Cheng
Epoch Times Staff Apr 21, 2009

Yu Jialiang is the two-year-old daughter of Beijing Falun Gong practitioners Yu Ping and Zhao Yumin. Little Jialiang should be living a happy and peaceful life with her loving family, but in the past year, she has witnessed the illegal arrest of both her parents. Now she suffers in a broken family without parents to care for her.

According to Clearwisdom.net, Jialiang’s father was pursuing his master’s degree in the Department of Thermal Engineering at Tsinghua University in 1995. In March 1997, he began to work on his doctorate degree ahead of schedule due to his outstanding accomplishments. During the course of his study, he was awarded a Siemens Scholarship.

In early June 2000, he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, gaining the unanimous approval of the dissertation committee. The dissertation was also selected as an excellent thesis.

However, despite his academic achievements he was never awarded the PhD degree—because of his spiritual beliefs.

Since July 20, 1999, the Chinese communist regime led by Jiang Zemin has staged a reckless campaign of suppression against the spiritual group Falun Gong. Jialiang’s parents went to Tiananmen Square seven times to appeal for an end to the persecution of this peaceful practice.

Because of Yu’s involvement with Falun Gong, Tsinghua University refused to grant Yu Ping a doctoral degree. At that time, he managed to obtain a full scholarship from Ohio State University; but the regime illegally detained and incarcerated Yu, so he lost the chance to study aboard.

In November 2000, local police officers searched the Yu home and arrested Yu Ping and Zhao Yumin. Yu Ping was sentenced to four years and detained in Qianjin Prison in Tianjin City. Zhao Yumin was detained at Beijing Women’s Prison.

After four arduous years of torture and incarceration, Jialiang’s parents were finally released and returned home. Later Jialiang was born into this happy family.

However, the good times didn’t last long. Prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese authorities increased the persecution of Falun Gong and arrested many Falun Gong practitioners. According to incomplete statistics, from the end of 2007 to June 30, 2008, more than 8037 Falun Gong practitioners were illegally detained or arrested, especially in Beijing, including Jialiang’s parents.

On April 19, 2008, at around 4 p.m., some seven or eight policemen from local police stations in Chaoyang District broke into Jialiang’s home, forcefully arrested Jialiang’s parents, along with their grandmother and aunt. Then one-year-old Jialiang was extremely terrified, and cried aloud when watching her family being taken away from her.   more ...

No accounting for China's accountability

SUN WUKONG
Apr 22, 2009
By Wu Zhong, China Editor

HONG KONG - The soft treatment given to a food safety official in the wake of last September's melamine-tainted infant milk scandal has re-awakened the Chinese public's anger at how authorities dealt with those responsible for the incident.

At the center of the scandal, which left six children dead and 300,000 ill, was the now-bankrupt Sanlu Group in Shejiazhuang, the provincial capital of Hebei. It was found to have added melamine, a raw material used in the plastics industry, into baby formula to seemingly boost its "protein" content.

The scandal, which came right after the success of the Beijing Summer Olympic Games, shocked the nation and the central

leadership. Premier Wen Jiabao personally visited sick children in a Beijing hospital and convened two special cabinet meetings to deal with the aftermath. To ease growing public anger and appease parents, he solemnly pledged officials found responsible would be "seriously dealt with".

In late September, Li Changjiang was forced to resign as minister in charge of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), the country's top food safety watchdog. Several Shijiazhuang officials were sacked or forced to step down.

In January, a court sentenced Tian Wenhua, a former chairwoman of Sanlu Group, to life imprisonment. Other Sanlu executives were also given jail terms. After a six-month investigation, the Ministry of Supervision announced in late March that eight senior officials from AQSIA and Ministries of Agriculture and Health would be disciplined.

One of the eight, Bao Junkai, then deputy head of AQSIA's Department of Supervision on Food Production, was given a gross demerit - the most severe disciplinary punishment next to demotion or dismissal.

However, only a few weeks later, Chinese media revealed that Bao had been appointed as director and party chief of Anhui Provincial Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau.    more ...

China automakers focus on hybrid and electric vehicles

USAToday
March 20, 2009

By Elaine Kurtenbach, The Associated Press
SHANGHAI — As global automakers agonize about survival strategies, China's upstarts are racing to launch homegrown hybrid and electric vehicles in the only major auto market still growing.

Shanghai's biennial auto show, which opens Monday, will showcase these "new energy" vehicles, as the Chinese call them, alongside a cornucopia of conventional compacts, luxury and midrange vehicles.

No purely electric vehicles, apart from a few experimental buses, are on Chinese roads yet. Automakers still are working on developing products with prices and performance that are competitive with conventional cars.

Yet the focus on innovation reflects China's desire to curb its growing dependence on imported crude oil and to clear its polluted city skies. Beijing is plowing $1.5 billion into new energy vehicle technologies in the next three years.

"There's a lot of interest in electric vehicles because it's a technology that's emerging from China's strong research and development base for lithium-ion batteries," said Ray Bierzynski, vice president for engineering in the Asia-Pacific for General Motors. "China has grown very dramatically, but it still has a relatively young infrastructure, so the move to battery technology is very interesting for China."   more ...

China bosses told to cut salaries

Executives of state-owned banks and insurers in China have been told to cut their salaries to ease the disparity between themselves and Chinese workers.

BBC News
Friday, 10 April 2009 10:39 UK

A government directive said that individual financial enterprises paid top executives too much.

The ruling came amid growing concern about the economic downturn, which has put some 20 million people out of work.

Executive pay in China is modest by Western standards, but is many times that of ordinary workers.

The average employee in one of China's top financial institutions earns $58,500 (£40,000) - with those at the very top of these firms earning considerably more.

In Chinese cities the average employee earns about $2,200 (£1,500) a year. Those in rural areas far less, according to a survey by a Shanghai business magazine   more ...

Beaten and Broken

By Wang Meiling
Epoch Times Staff Apr 8, 2009

On the morning of April 4, retired Shandong University professor, Sun Wenguang, was followed by police, and later beaten by several unknown persons publicly. The attack resulted in three broken ribs. Sun has been admitted into hospital and is still under intensive care in Qilu Hospital, Jinan City.

On the evening of April 5, the 75 year old told an Epoch Times reporter in a phone interview, “I was beaten and am now in hospital … A few police officers followed me when I left the University on the morning of April 4, then several others pushed me down a two meter high hill and beat me in the park.”

Sun also confirmed, “They broke three of my ribs. It’s so painful. I haven’t slept for 36 hours. I can only lie in bed in one position.”    more ...

Two Tibetans sentenced to death

China has sentenced two men to death for deadly arson attacks during an uprising in Tibet a year ago.

BBC News
Wednesday, 8 April 2009 14:03 UK

These are the first definitive death sentences relating to the widespread riots in Lhasa last March.

The Chinese government says about 20 people were killed during the unrest while exiled Tibetan circles put the figure at more than 200.

Hundreds of people were arrested as a result of the riots and several have already received long jail terms.

Different versions

The two men sentenced to death played a part in starting fires which resulted in seven deaths and the destruction of five shops in Lhasa, Chinese state media report.    more ...

China PM shoe trial date changed

The trial of a man accused of harassing the Chinese Prime Minister has been rescheduled to avoid a clash with the anniversary of a student massacre.

BBC News
Tuesday, 7 April 2009 13:30 UK

Cambridge University researcher Martin Jahnke, 27, admits throwing a shoe at Wen Jiabao during his tour of Britain.

However, he has denied causing intentional harm or distress.

Magistrates in Cambridge have moved his trial forward to 1 June to avoid it ending on 4 June - the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising.    more ...

Chinese Woman Forced to Have Sterilization

By Qiao Long
Radio Free Asia Apr 6, 2009

Gan Yulan, a woman from a small town in Jianxi Province of China, was blindfolded and forced to have a sterilization operation by local township officials on March 23. Gan told a reporter that she was assaulted by the deputy director of the Local People's Congress on the way to the hospital and was forced to be sterilized without any family members present.

Four officers took her into custody without showing any legal warrant. The officer who assaulted her on the way to the hospital was deputy director, Wang Xuebing. When asked why he hit her, Wang said: "You are nobody. I can do whatever I want to you."

When they got to the local hospital, she was forced undergo the procedure without any preliminary medical screening or family members presence. Wang didn't even allow her to go home after the procedure and told her that she had no other choice.   more ...

Unofficial Earthquake Student Death Toll Removed From Internet

By Qiao Long
Radio Free Asia Apr 5, 2009

Residents from the Sichuan area are holding memorial services on Tomb-sweeping Day for their loved ones who died in the May 22, 2008 earthquake in Wufu, Sichuan province, China. In most of the regions, such as Beichuan County and Dujiangyang, the services are held under police surveillance.

An unofficial figure based on incomplete statistics (collected up to the end of April 2) showed that over 4,100 students died in the earthquake. However, this figure was removed from the Internet (the limited sites available in mainland China) on April 3.

As Tomb-sweeping Day approaches, the quake victims’ families have been holding traditional memorial services such as burning incense and scattering ‘ghost money.’

Mr. Wang, a parent whose child went to Beichuan Middle School, told the reporter that the police have been keeping a close eye on the families of the deceased students fearing they would organize a protest.    more ...

Dalai Lama rival steps into spotlight

Tuesday, 31 March 2009 17:23 UK
By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing

China has pushed a young bespectacled monk into the spotlight in an effort to show that it governs Tibet with a benign hand.

Officials have launched a vigorous propaganda battle over recent weeks, to demonstrate that Tibetans are thriving under Beijing's direction.

And the man China selected as its Panchen Lama, the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism, has been at the forefront of that campaign.

Although he is only 19, the Panchen Lama has already stepped onto the public stage to praise the Chinese Communist Party.

Tibet expert Professor Robert Barnett, of New York's Columbia University, says this is part of China's efforts to undermine the appeal of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism.

"He will never really replace the Dalai Lama, but his role confuses the picture and can gradually be used to weaken the Dalai Lama's standing," he said.

"I think [China's] Panchen Lama is being built up very gradually as a public spokesman within the Tibetan Buddhist world."     more ...

Holiday marks Tibet 'liberation'

BBC News
Saturday, 28 March 2009

The Chinese authorities have marked the inaugural "Serfs' Liberation Day" with ceremonies and speeches extolling the virtue of Chinese development in Tibet.

"Any plots to make Tibet independent... are bound to fail," said Zhang Qingli, Tibet's Communist Party chief.

The holiday, which marks the start of Beijing's direct rule of Tibet in 1959, was announced last year after Tibetans joined violent protests against China.

The Free Tibet group said all China had to offer was intensifying repression.

Beijing says it liberated Tibet from the dark ages, freeing the population from medieval-style feudal slavery and bringing prosperity to its people.

A crowd of more than 13,000 watched the Serf's Liberation Day ceremony in front of Tibet's famed Potala Palace. National television broadcast the 75-minute event live.

Nowadays we have roads, televisions and telephones... all made possible by the Communist Party
69-year-old Tibetan

A man describing himself as a former serf, a student and military officials joined Mr Zhang in praising the economic development brought by China and denouncing the exiled former Buddhist theocracy that ruled Tibet.

"Nowadays we have roads, we have televisions and telephones, children go to schools, and we have savings in the banks, all made possible by the Communist Party," said one Tibetan man who had been born into what he described as a serf family in 1940.

But critics of Beijing rule say Tibetans feel excluded from China's considerable economic investment in the region which has mainly benefited the Han Chinese who have migrated there in massive numbers.

The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Beijing says 50 years of Chinese control has left Tibetans with little political or religious freedom.    more ...

YouTube blocked in China

CNN
March 25, 2009

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- China has blocked the popular video-sharing Web site YouTube but did not offer a reason for the ban.
A general screenshot of YouTube, which was blocked in China as of Wednesday.

Google, which owns YouTube, said it began noticing a decline in traffic from China about noon Monday.

By early Wednesday, site users insider China continued to encounter an error message: "Network Timeout. The server at youtube.com is taking too long to respond."

"We do not know the reason for the blockage and we are working as quickly as possible to restore access to our users," said Scott Rubin, a spokesman for Google, which owns YouTube.

It's not the first time users in China have been unable to access the site. In March 2008, China blocked YouTube during riots in Tibet. more ...

China athletes 'faked their age'

BBC News
Monday, 16 March 2009

Bone tests on teenage athletes in south China have shown that thousands had faked their age, often in order to keep competing in junior events. Tests on nearly 13,000 athletes found that more than 3,000 were older than their registered age, according to the Sports Bureau of Guangdong Province. At least one athlete was seven years older than their stated age, but most were said to differ by a year or two. The news comes as Guangdong prepares to host the 2010 Asian Games. The investigation is the latest in a number of initiatives by the Chinese authorities to crack down on the practice of age-faking, which many experts believe is rampant. more ...

China patrols in South China Seas

BBC News
Monday, 16 March 2009

One of China's largest fisheries patrol ships has arrived at the disputed Paracel Islands. The move comes after China protested to Manila over new legislation proclaiming Philippine sovereignty over parts of the disputed Spratly islands. Both the Paracels - known in China as Xisha - and the Spratlys are subject to overlapping claims. Separately, China and the US were involved in naval skirmishes last week off the Chinese island of Hainan. The China Daily said that the patrol ship, a retired Chinese navy rescue vessel, the China Yuzheng 311, set sail from Guangzhou last week and reached the Paracel island group during the weekend. more ...

Obama seeks to ease US-China row

BBC News
Thursday, 12 March 2009

US President Barack Obama has invited China's top diplomat to the White House in an effort to defuse tensions over a dispute in the South China Sea.

Mr Obama and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi will discuss the issue and other economic matters, a US official said.

On Monday, the US said five Chinese ships had harassed an unarmed US navy surveillance vessel in a dangerous manner in international waters.

But Beijing accused the US of operating illegally in its maritime territory.

China called the US complaint "totally inaccurate" and accused it of breaking international law by operating in its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). more ...

Whispers of the Dalai Lama

BBC News
James Reynolds
12 Mar 09, 09:08 GMT

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising which led to the exile of the Dalai Lama. Tibet's exiled leader has described the situation in his homeland as "hell on earth" - a characterisation rejected by China.

At the moment, China has stopped foreigners from travelling into Tibet, but many Tibetans also live in neighbouring Chinese provinces on the Tibetan plateau. These are the only Tibetan areas that we can try to visit.

But in recent days, the Chinese authorities have detained (and sometimes harassed) many foreign reporters who have tried to get to these areas.

Still, a few days ago, a colleague and I managed to get in and out of the Tibetan plateau without being arrested. Here's what we found. more ...

China factory output growth slows

Industrial production growth in China slowed in January and February, as the downturn in the world economy knocked demand for exports.

BBC News
Thursday, 12 March 2009

Output in the two months was up 3.8% from a year ago, against a 5.7% rise in December, official figures have shown.

China has been battered by a fall in demand for its goods, with exports falling a record 25.7% in February.

But there are signs that the government's stimulus package is having an impact as bank lending increased.

Production in February alone rose 11%, though this figure was flattered by the fact that February this year had five more working days than February last year because of the timing of the Chinese New Year holidays. more ...

Gao Zhisheng’s Wife and Children Arrive in the U.S.

Epoch Times Staff Mar 11, 2009

The wife and two children of famous Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng arrived in the United States on Wednesday having successfully escaped from China.

Two organizations, Friends of Gao Zhisheng and the Global Association for the Rescue of Gao Zhisheng, indicated that Geng He and her children entered Thailand where they filed for asylum with the U.N. Refugee Agency.

They were accepted by the U.S. government and safely arrived in the United States today.

“This family needs a stable life. We are very happy the U.S. government has helped them,” said Sherry Zhang of Friends of Gao Zhisheng.

“This family has suffered greatly, particularly the daughter. She is a 16-year-old child who has suffered physical and mental abuse at the hands of the Chinese regime. The son is five and one-half years old, and has also suffered. He tends to be very emotional,” she said. more ...

Breaking Away from Communism

By Lian Xing
Epoch Times Staff Mar 11, 2009

Several years ago, Mr. Wang from Liaoning Province suddenly lost his land, along with the 300,000 farmers from his hometown, over a buyout.

This year, on January 21, Mr. Wang denounced the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

For many years, the complaints have gone nowhere. Mr. Wang said furiously, “The CCP has lost our trust. It is too corrupt. The regime is like the current Chinese economy. On the surface, it seems developing. In fact, it is a bubble. Soon, the bubble will break and disappear. We all want to break away from the CCP. Only then will we stay away from this hell-like life.”

Mr. Wang explained that the regime took away their forest land. People suffer and have no where to turn to. The officials are corrupt and covering for each other. He said, “For example, they took away our land that was worth 1000 yuan, and reimbursed 50 yuan. I went to Beijing four times to file complaints. But each department and division shirked the responsibility, including the committee for discipline investigation, the courts, the prosecutors, and so forth. The regime is totally dysfunctional. For example, I complained to the Forestry Department. What they did was issue a supervisory letter which was transferred from the province to the city, from the city to the county. Are they suggesting the county magistrate would supervise and sue himself? It’s impossible! The regime is simply corrupt, and trying to fool us!”

Mr. Wang indicated that over 300,000 farmers were victims of the buyout. The officials care about no one. He said, “The high officials are hiding in the back. They let the local cadres in the village decide how much the land is worth, and the ownership of the land. They could buy anything worth 100 yuan with just one yuan and you’ll find no justice. If you intend to complain to Beijing, they’ll cut you back before you reach the Letter and Petition Office in Beijing. No one will resolve it for you. At least 30 people have tried to visit Beijing during the two conferences (the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference).” more ...

China's SARS Hero Demands Apology

Reuters Mar 11, 2009

BEIJING—A military surgeon who blew the whistle on China's SARS cover-up in 2003 and asked the Communist Party to reassess its 1989 massacre of Tiananmen protesters has asked the government to apologise for detaining him.

Jiang Yanyong wrote to President Hu Jintao demanding an apology for time he spent confined in an army "guesthouse" and months under house arrest, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters. He also asked Hu to lift a ban on overseas travel.

There are no new revelations in the letter, but it is likely to upset the government by raising the sensitive Tiananmen protests just months before the 20th anniversary of the massacre of pro-democracy protesters, and as officials grapple with economic crisis. more ...

Activists 'shocked' at Clinton stance on China rights

Yahoo.com
Fri Feb 20, 1:29 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Amnesty International and a pro-Tibet group voiced shock Friday after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed not to let human rights concerns hinder cooperation with China.

Paying her first visit to Asia as the top US diplomat, Clinton said the United States would continue to press China on long-standing US concerns over human rights such as its rule over Tibet.

"But our pressing on those issues can't interfere on the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis," Clinton told reporters in Seoul just before leaving for Beijing. more ...

Cheats compete for top China jobs

BBC News, Shanghai
By Chris Hogg
Monday, 19 January 2009

In China about 1,000 entrants taking civil service entrance exams have been caught cheating, some of them using technology used by spies. More than 750,000 people applied for the 13,500 places available. A job in the civil service is highly sought after in China as government officials are powerful and often make a lot of money as a result. Across China people working in the private sector are losing their jobs as the economy flattens. There was a record number of applications this year for jobs in the public sector as it is seen as a safer place to work. But it is hard to get into the civil service. Fifty-seven people applied for each place on offer through the annual exams.

More than 300 applicants were caught cheating while completing their papers. Officials said some had planted tiny electronic receivers in their ears to pick up broadcasts from accomplices.    more ...

2nd bird flu case in China

Reuters
Jan 18, 2009

BEIJING - A TWO-YEAR-OLD girl has been confirmed to be infected with bird flu in north China's Shanxi Province, Xinhua news agency said on Sunday, citing a provincial government official, in the second case in as many weeks. The girl, surnamed Peng, was found ill on Jan 7 in central Hunan Province and was taken to hospital in Luliang City of Shanxi on Jan 11, Xinhua said, citing an unnamed official with the Shanxi provincial health department. The girl had tested positive for the H5N1 strain of avian influenza and 'was in critical condition', Xinhua cited the official as saying. 'All people who have had close contact with her are under strict medical observation ... Up to now, no abnormal symptoms have been found,' a statement on China's Health Ministry website said.       more ...

What Will Happen to RMB, the Chinese Currency? (Part 1)

By Lou Xinhui
Epoch Times Staff Jan 18, 2009

Whether the Chinese RMB will appreciate or depreciate is an important subject. There are various predications about its trend. This article is a systematic analysis of the past of the RMB.
The RMB in the Past Thirty Years

From 1978 to 1993, in order to stimulate export, Chinese authorities exercised a double-track foreign exchange policy, with implementation of foreign exchange quota and tight control. Up to 1994 due to the huge difference between the foreign exchange market and the Chinese official market, Chinese businesses did not want to sell its foreign exchange reserve to commercial banks, causing high foreign exchange reserve and shortage of foreign exchange in the government. In 1994 the Chinese authorities started to exercise the unification of exchange rates, which is a floating exchange rate system with intervention by the government called “Dirty Float.”

In 1997 when the Asian Financial crisis happened, Chinese authorities declared that the RMB would not devalue. As a result, the RMB adopted fixed rate against the U.S. Dollar. Although the Chinese government did not officially announce this, the RMB rate against the US Dollar did not change for a long time.

The RMB would have appreciated a long time ago according to the market rule. However, since China’s economic growth is mainly achieved by the growth on export, the Chinese government suppressed the RMB’s appreciation in order to maintain its high growth rate, and consequently faced high pressure from the international society.

During the meeting participated by the seven developed countries in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in February 2002, Japan’s Minster of Finance Masajiro Shiokawa submitted a bill to the other six countries suggesting appreciation of the RMB. In mid 2003, U.S. Treasury Secretary Snow and Chairman of Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan expressed that the RMB should be more flexible. Some U.S. economists estimated that the RMB was about 15-50 percent undervalued. more ... 

Corrupt Officials Seize Sichuan Earthquake Relief Funds

By Dong Fang
VOA News Jan 10, 2009

According to a recent report of China’s National Audit Office (NAO), there has been concern that corrupt officials misused earthquake relief funds in Sichuan, one of China's southwestern provinces struck by an earthquake on May 12, 2008, leaving more than 87,000 people dead or missing. Hong Kong media also reported similar concerns of misuse of relief money, false disaster reports and corruption of local officials. Some Chinese scholars commented that the brazen corruption of Chinese local officials results from the lack of grassroots and media supervision in China’s political system, and proves that top-down efforts alone cannot effectively combat corruption.

By the end of November 2008, the NAO had received a total of 1962 reports of cases of corruption, and transferred 146 of them to the discipline inspection and auditing departments with 162 people involved, according to China’s State media, Xinhua News Agency.       more ...

China officials 'lost millions'

BBC News
Saturday, 10 January 2009

Officials from China's southern Guangdong province are reported to have gambled away more than $3m (£2m) of public money in recent years. Chinese media reports said more than 50 officials had been investigated and six had been jailed or punished. The officials lost the money gambling at casinos in Macau, on cruise ships off Hong Kong, and betting on football matches, reports said.

President Hu Jintao has said battling corruption is a key priority. more ...

Violent Relocation and Demolition Using Sulfuric Acid in Yangzhou

By Ye Bing
VOA News Jan 9, 2009

Washington D.C.—In Yangzhou City, China, two elderly women locked themselves inside a cage to avoid being driven from their land as a consequence of forced eviction and demolition. According to relatives of the women, both were injured and one suffered second degree burns when they were sprayed with sulfuric acid by thugs hired by the relocation business. They were then harassed by officials from the department of City Administrations.

The Tianbaocheng Silver House in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province is a privately owned three-story building with over 100 years of history. One year ago, before any agreement with the property owners had been signed, a real estate developer forcefully demolished the building in the middle of the night. The property owners Jin Lanying and her sister-in-law Ju Wenzhen are both over 60 years old. When the developer tried to force the two women to leave, they saw no other option but to lock themselves inside a large cage which they had built on their property.

According to Ju’s son Jin Zhen, on November 3, 2008, hired thugs kidnapped his mother and aunt and took them to a location about 300 to 400 meters away from their property. Jin said: “They then used a bulldozer to dig up our land, preparing to lay pipes.”

On December 3, they hired over 100 thugs wearing safety hats and pretending to be construction workers. They all carried spray cans, and without warning sprayed my mother and aunt with sulfuric acid.”

In self-defense, the ladies opened a gas cylinder, which is normally used for cooking and water heating, and flames shot into the sky. People at the scene who had tried to videotape what was happening were attacked and beaten by thugs.

Jin’s aunt Jin Lanying was injured from the attack and was diagnosed with second-degree burns.

After last year’s incident, Jin’s family appealed and complained to the police department and the courts many times. Their complaints and appeals were ignored. Yet Yangzhou City authorities demanded that they remove the banners that they had hung on their cage. The banners contained slogans supporting Hu Jintao’s policy of land acquisition and resettlement.       more ...

China warns on fake yuan currency

BBC News
Friday, 9 January 2009

China's central bank has issued a warning about fake bank notes ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. The bank said 100-yuan notes bearing the "HD90" serial number have been reported in 10 provinces. They have also been found in Hong Kong. A People's Bank of China statement said low-quality counterfeit detectors did not always manage to spot the fakes.

But it said the telltale signs could be spotted with the naked eye, and urged people to be vigilant. "Though mostly counterfeit 100-yuan notes [worth $14.60] are not too hard to make out, people should be careful as cash transactions during the Spring Festival are high," the bank statement said.       more ...

Veteran Chinese activist jailed

BBC News
Thursday, 8 January 2009

A veteran democracy activist in China has been sentenced to six years in jail for helping set up an opposition party, activists and supporters have said. A court in Hangzhou sentenced Wang Rongqing on charges of "subversion of state power", according to the China Human Rights Defenders. Wang had helped to set up a political group called the China Democratic Party in the late 1990s.

China's ruling Communist Party does not allow challenges to its monopoly. It does allow a few alternative parties, but they have to be officially recognised by the government and serve as advisers to the Communist Party rather than competing against it. more ...

Why China's milk industry went sour

By Vaudine England
BBC News, Hong Kong
00:30 GMT, Monday, 29 September 2008 01:30 UK

It did not take long for the euphoria of the Beijing Olympics to fade.

China's failure to produce good milk has killed at least four babies, and sickened many thousands of others.   Domestic and export markets in anything that might contain Chinese milk powder are stymied, and scores of dairy firms have gone to the wall.   The still unravelling saga has reduced China's reputation for food safety - and manufacturing integrity - to its lowest level in years.

Experts in the industry say the problems start at source - the cows.   Most farmers are poor and do not eat well - and neither do their cows. Average herds of just three to five cows are often kept in substandard, filthy conditions.   But bigger problems occur as the milk moves through the production chain.

Squeezed on price

The farmers have few means to monitor the quality of the milk they are producing. And their small business size gives them little ability to influence the market.   First they dilute the raw milk with water to increase its volume, often up to about 30 percent

Ins and outs

The farmers have no bargaining power when they sell the milk to middlemen, who are usually independent and unregulated.   The farmers get squeezed on price yet are under constant pressure to produce more milk.   So in order to meet the booming industry's gulping demands, and to cope with the ever lower prices paid for raw milk to smallholders, the milk is bulked up.   Several experts on the Chinese milk industry say this is where the additive process begins.       more ...

Cadbury recalls Chinese chocolate

British chocolate-maker Cadbury is recalling its Chinese-made products over fears of possible contamination.

BBC Newss
13:23 GMT, Monday, 29 September 2008 14:23 UK

At least 50,000 Chinese babies have been sickened and four killed by milk tainted with the chemical melamine.

Cadbury officials did not say whether traces of melamine had been found in the firm's products, but said tests had "cast doubt" on their safety.

The firm is recalling products in mainland China as well as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia.

China's reputation for food safety has nosedived since the revelations last month that milk products poisoned by melamine were responsible for causing renal problems in babies who drank the milk formula.      more ...

China inspects dairy farms over baby formula

cnn.com
updated 1:44 a.m. EDT, Mon September 15, 2008

BEIJING, China (AP) -- China's food safety watchdog sent inspectors to the country's main dairy producing regions on Sunday after at least 432 babies were sickened by tainted milk powder produced by a Chinese company.

Officials have defended their response to China's latest product safety disaster, saying that authorities have detained 19 people and are questioning 78 others about how the banned chemical melamine was added to milk sold to Sanlu Group Co., China's biggest milk powder producer.

The government is sending groups of officials to Hebei, Guangdong and Heilongjiang provinces and the Inner Mongolia region to inspect dairy companies, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said.    more ...

Large Protests in China’s Hunan Province

Protesters allege to be victims of illegal fund raising

Epoch Times
September 8, 2008

A large protest broke out on September 4 in Jishou City, Hunan Province. According to a witness, nearly 100,000 people were involved. Protesters blocked all major roads and filled train stations, causing trains to stop and delayed many passengers. Jishou City locates in the West of Hunan Province, next to Hubei Province, Chongqing City of Sichuan Province and Guizhou Province. It is the capital city of Xiangxi Tu Ethnic Group Autonomous Prefecture.

The protests were quelled by military police together with traffic police, civil police and fire fighters. Dozens of people were arrested. It is uncertain if any deaths or injuries occurred in the unrest.
The protesters allege to be victims of illegal fund raising. According to sources claiming to be insiders in some of the fraud schemes, since 2004, market developers in the region offered investors a monthly interest rate of three percent, and later up to as high as 10 percent. Within a short period of time a large amount of investment from people and business was raised. It is said this trading was permitted and encouraged by local officials who hoped the short-term market boom would give their administration the appearance of success. Some officials of the autonomous prefecture also became underhanded shareholders and worked together with the developers to put the fund into investment.        more ...

China to top Asian consumer markets in 2009

19:50, September 08, 2008
People's Daily Online

By 2009 China will become the largest consumer market in Asia said Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming.

Speaking at the 12th Xiamen International Trade and Investment Fair on Monday in the east Fujian Province, Chen predicted entertainment, housing and tourism will expand their shares in the domestic market.

"As one of the world's fastest growing consumer markets, China is a world leader in mobile phone sales, domestic tourism, and broadband network penetration," said Chen.      more ...

20,000 Chinese SWAT Officers Deployed to Hunan to Monitor Protesters

By Gu Qinger and Hu Tongcai
Epoch Times StaffSep 7, 2008Share: Facebook Digg

On September 4, almost 100,000 Jishou City residents joined together for a protest regarding money loaned to businesses that had became insolvent.

The government-supported loan scheme had encouraged prefecture-level and city-level government officials to invest in long-term, high-interest rate loans for local corporations and business people.

The problems began in early August when investors were tipped off that the businesses were insolvent.

Investors started withdrawing their investments and in less than two weeks had withdrawn nearly 10 billion yuan from the loan scheme (approx. US$1.5 billion), causing the corporations to become completely insolvent. The loan scheme was worth nearly 7 billion yuan (US$1 billion).

Authorities have responded to the protest by sending 20,000 Chinese SWAT officers into the city. Nine of the main coordinators of the protest have been arrested, and the 20,000 officers remain stationed in the city.      more ...

China sets dates for space launch

By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News
last updated at 17:49 GMT, Sunday, 7 September 2008 18:49 UK

China has already launched two manned flights
China will launch its third manned space mission in late September, state-run news agency Xinhua reports.
The Shenzhou VII flight will feature China's first ever space walk, which will be broadcast live with cameras inside and outside the spacecraft.
Three "yuhangyuan" (astronauts) will blast off on a Long-March II-F rocket sometime between 25 and 30 September. Previous reports in state media had put the launch in October, possibly during the National Day holiday.      more ...

Landslide in China leaves 26 dead

BBC News - Page last updated at 11:56 GMT, Monday, 8 September 2008 12:56 UK

At least 26 people were killed when a landslide swept through a warehouse in central China, state media said.
The accident happened early on Monday in Shanxi province's Linfen city.
A torrent of rocks and mud hit a warehouse at the Tashan mine, causing it to collapse, Xinhua news agency said.    more ...

Chinese Rights Advocate Tortured in Captivity

By Yu Hang
Sound of Hope Radio Aug 4, 2008

In the shadow of a Beijing Olympics touted as a harbinger of change and human rights improvements, a well-placed informant from China disclosed to Sound of Hope Radio (SOH) the painful plight of renowned Chinese human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng since his disappearance a year ago.

The anonymous insider told SOH in a telephone interview that Gao, after his mysterious disappearance on September 22, 2007, was taken by the PRC police to a secret location where he suffered physical and psychological torture for nearly 60 days. The source said the level of torture was "beyond anyone’s imagination" and even the police executing the torture admired Gao’s uncompromising spirit.

While recounting the tortures inflicting on Gao, the insider souce said [transcribed from the telephone recording], “For example, they stripped attorney Gao Zhisheng naked, threw him to the ground and attacked him with electric batons. They deprived him of sleep. This is very common. It goes without saying that they beat him up as well. They have resorted to lowly, despicable means.”

The insider added that they tortured Gao Zhisheng to make him do three things. First, to make him write an article condemning Falun Gong. Second, to make him write articles condemning the founder of Falun Gong. Third, to make him write articles praising the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). more ...

Limits to China's pledge of change

China promised an open Olympics for the media, and to promote human rights and democracy, in its bid for the Games. To see if it was true to its word, BBC Panorama reporter John Sweeney spent five weeks criss-crossing the country, following the torch relay.

BBC News
updated at 11:10 GMT, Sunday, 3 August 2008 12:10 UK

Fang Zheng is the kind of person who sums up the Olympic ideal. He lost his legs in what was, officially, a "traffic accident" and subsequently won golds in an all-China competition.

But when the torch came through his home town of Hefei, he was not there.

Fang's story tells you something about just how open modern China is.

"It wasn't a traffic accident," he told me. "The truth is that on June 4th 1989 when I was withdrawing from Tiananmen Square, I was chased from behind by a tank and both of my legs were crushed."

The 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre is still officially taboo in China. Hundreds died - nobody knows how many - but effective censorship means that millions of Chinese know nothing about it.

Fang, 41, continued: "When the tank crushed me, I was still conscious and I could see the white bones of my legs."     more ...

Hundreds of migrant workers attack police station in China

Posted 7/14/2008 5:20 AM
USA Today

SHANGHAI (AP) — Hundreds of migrant workers angry over mistreatment of a fellow worker surrounded a police station in eastern China and smashed cars and motorbikes, a Hong Kong-based human rights organization said Monday.

The three days of rioting began Thursday in Kanmen town in coastal Zhejiang province, according to the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

The deputy director of the public security bureau in Yuhuan county, which oversees Kanmen, played down the incident. Wen Zhengui also denied that anyone had been killed in the violence, responding to a question from a reporter about rumors that two people had died.      more ......

China dissident Huang 'arrested'

BBC News
Page last updated at 16:08 GMT, Monday, 16 June 2008 17:08 UK

The mother of a dissident Chinese web journalist who vanished last week says he has been taken into police custody.  Huang Qi had not been seen or heard from since he was bundled into a car in Chengdu, the capital of the quake-hit province of Sichuan, last Tuesday.

It is thought Mr Huang may have been detained for posting an article about an academic held for criticising the government's response to the quake.  Mr Huang finished a five-year jail term for subversion in 2005.  He had allowed articles about China's 1989 pro-democracy protests to appear on his website, 64Tianwang.  Since his release, he has resumed his campaigning work, setting up the Tianwang human-rights centre.       more ...

China Says Arms Bound for Zimbabwe May Be Recalled

By REUTERS
Published: April 22, 2008

BEIJING, April 22 (Reuters) - China said on Tuesday a shipment of weapons bound for Zimbabwe may head back after the vessel was unable to unload, but defended the cargo as "perfectly normal trade".

Zambia's president urged regional states on Monday to bar the An Yue Jiang from entering their waters, saying the weapons could deepen Zimbabwe's election crisis. The ship already failed to unload its cargo in South Africa, and Mozambique and Angola have denied it access to their ports.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the contract for the shipment was signed last year and was "unrelated to recent developments" in Zimbabwe.

Jiang said the arms shipment was "perfectly normal trade in military goods between China and Zimbabwe", but because it was impossible for Zimbabwe to receive the goods, the company involved is now considering shipping the cargo back.    more ...

China Condemns Dalai Lama Honor

By REUTERS
Published: April 22, 2008

BEIJING, April 22 (Reuters) - China condemned on Tuesday Paris's decision to make the Dalai Lama an honorary citizen, warning that the gesture had damaged ties with France just as both nations were seeking to ease bad blood over protests.

Relations between France and China were strained by Tibet protests that disrupted the passage of the Beijing Olympic Games torch through Paris earlier this month.

Angry Chinese citizens have responded by urging boycotts of French goods and companies, especially the retailer Carrefour.

As French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chinese President Hu Jintao were seeking to heal rifts by sending envoys to each other, Paris city hall on Monday honoured the Dalai Lama, the exiled Buddhist leader whom China blames for unrest in Tibetan areas.

The Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in 1959, has long called for greater Tibetan autonomy and freedom. He says he opposes violent protest and demands for outright Tibetan independence, but China calls him a hypocrite.       more.....

China 'must not return N Koreans'

BBC Newss
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 07:15 UK

The US has urged China to stop repatriating North Korean refugees because of concerns over how the returnees are treated.

Those suspected of converting to Christianity or of meeting South Korean Christians face severe persecution, a report by a government commission said.  The treatment was part of Pyongyang's efforts to prevent the spread of religion, the report said.  The study was by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.  Entitled "A Prison Without Bars", it was based on interviews with 32 refugees and six North Korean security agents who had defected.

'Torture and prison'

According to the commission, there is a pressing need for action to address the repression of religious freedom and other human rights in North Korea.  It described the forced repatriation of refugees from China as "an issue of special concern".    more ...

China 'now top carbon polluter'

By Roger Harrabin
BBC Environment analyst

China has already overtaken the US as the world's "biggest polluter", a report to be published next month says.

The research suggests the country's greenhouse gas emissions have been underestimated, and probably passed those of the US in 2006-2007.

The University of California team will report their work in the Journal of Environment Economics and Management.

They warn that unchecked future growth will dwarf any emissions cuts made by rich nations under the Kyoto Protocol.

The team admit there is some uncertainty over the date when China may have become the biggest emitter of CO2, as their analysis is based on 2004 data.      Until now it has been generally believed that the US remains "Polluter Number One".      more ...

Chinese Relentlessly Patrol A Subdued but Jittery Lhasa

Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, April 15, 2008; Page A01

LHASA, China -- Two elderly Tibetan women lay prostrate before the Potala Palace on a recent day, venerating the 1,000-room hilltop monument that was once the seat of an independent Tibetan government and the Dalai Lama's winter residence.

About 30 feet away, two helmeted Chinese guards observed the display of traditional Buddhist devotion. Elsewhere in the Tibetan capital, other guards barred entrance to the city's most celebrated temples. Residents moved about their business, nervous and subdued.

One month after the explosion of violence that catapulted remote Tibet into the international spotlight, protests over Chinese policies here continue to unfold in many parts of the world, undermining China's effort to make the 2008 Beijing Olympics a display of progress at home and amity abroad. But here in Lhasa, the most visible outcome has been relentless street patrols by men in People's Armed Police uniforms who carry automatic rifles, check Tibetans' identification cards at random, and guard intersections and gasoline stations.       more ...

A new era or a 'made in China' affair?

Asia Times - Apr 15, 2008
By Ting-I Tsai

TAIPEI - It may have been somewhat of a coincidence that Taiwan's vice president-elect, Vincent Siew, of the Kuomintang party (KMT) met with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Saturday, just three weeks after he was elected, on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia in China's island province of Hainan.  But their brief encounter had all the trappings of a major political summit because of the frosty relationship that has existed between the two archrivals across the Taiwan Strait over past decade.

Some believe the meeting marked the beginning of a new era in   cross-strait relations but critics branded it as nothing more than a staged show that was not in Taiwan's interests.  Siew, who will be sworn in along with president-elect Ma Ying-jeou on May 20 after the two won the island's presidential election on March 22 with a pledge for closer ties with mainland China, described his trip as "ice melting" in cross-strait relations and an occasion to reach out to the international community.

For China, the meeting afforded an opportunity to demonstrate its peaceful side amid escalating tensions in Tibet and Xinjiang and major disturbances of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games torch relay as it passes around the world. Some analysts in Taiwan contended the Hu-Siew meeting on the Boao Forum was more like a staged show directed by Beijing.          more ...

Beijing to Halt Construction Ahead of Olympics

The New York Times
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: April 15, 2008

BEIJING — Officials laid out an ambitious series of measures on Monday that will freeze construction projects, slow down steel production and shut down quarries in and around the capital this summer in an attempt to clear the air for the Olympics. Even spray painting outdoors will be banned during the weeks before and after sporting events, which begin Aug. 8.

Although officials initially suggested the city’s wholesale transformation would be complete long before the opening ceremonies, the announcement nonetheless represents the most detailed possible plan for how Beijing might reach its long-standing pledge to stage “green Games” in one of the world’s most polluted cities. In earlier proclamations, officials had said that the city’s makeover would be competed by the end of 2007.

The measures announced Monday include a two-month halt in construction, beginning July 20, and government directives will force coal-burning power plants to reduce their emissions by 30 percent throughout most of the summer. Officials said that 19 heavy-polluting enterprises, including steel mills, coke plants and refineries, would be either temporarily mothballed or forced to reduce production.

Gas stations that do not meet environmental standards will be closed, cement production will stop, and the use of toxic solvents outdoors will be forbidden.       more ...

China Demographic Crisis: Too Many Boys, Elderly

NPR
Lindsay Mangum, NPR

Morning Edition, April 14, 2008 · It has been three decades since China's one-child policy was introduced as a temporary measure to slow the country's population growth. But there's rising opposition to the policy amid criticism that it's creating another demographic crisis.

The trends are exemplified in the city of Shanghai, which has the lowest birth rate and the highest proportion of seniors in China.

As two-year-old Maomao and her 10-month-old brother Lulu play in a Shanghai park, little do they realize they're a departure from three decades of strict family planning. Although many rural Chinese have two children, China still limits most urban families to just one child.

Because Maomao and Lulu's parents are both only-children themselves, they're among the privileged few city dwellers allowed to have two kids.

"I was lonely as a child," says their mother Zara, who didn't want her full name to be used. "I was jealous of friends who had brothers and sisters. Now my friends are envious of my two children."

Figures bear this out: A poll last year showed 69 percent of Chinese would support a proposal to abolish the one-child policy.

Zara has come to the park with her mother-in-law, and her 81-one-year-old mother-in-law. All of them support China's efforts to control its population.

"Our leaders have thought a lot about the country's policies," the 81-year-old matriarch says. "Whatever they say is right."

'Abnormal' Sex Ratio at Birth

However, demographic scholars aren't so sure. Some academics now believe the simplistic thinking behind the one-child policy could be responsible for a looming demographic crisis.

Among them is Peng Xizhe, dean of social development and public policy at Fudan University       more ...

IOC chief: Olympics in 'crisis' over torch chaos

Rogge tells China to respect vow to improve human rights, open up media

New York Times
April 10, 2008

BEIJING - IOC president Jacques Rogge said Thursday the turmoil surrounding the Beijing torch relay and the politically charged buildup to the Summer Games posed a "crisis'' for the Olympic movement.

Rogge urged China to respect its "moral engagement'' to improve human rights and to fulfill promises of greater media freedom. He reaffirmed the right of free speech for athletes at the Beijing Games.

At the same time, the International Olympic Committee expressed relief that the San Francisco leg of the torch relay passed off without major incident and declared that the rest of the international route would not be cut short or canceled.        more ...

Monks Disrupt Media Tour in China

New York Times
By JIM YARDLEY and JAKE HOOKER
Published: April 10, 2008

BEIJING — China suffered another unexpected public relations setback on Wednesday when Buddhist monks interrupted a government-managed news media tour in western China by waving a Tibetan flag and protesting that the authorities were depriving them of their human rights.

Tibetan monks held a sign that read, “We do not have freedom of speech,” and shouted slogans as reporters arrived Wednesday at Labrang Monestary in Xiahe, China, on a government tour.

The disruption, in Xiahe, a city in Gansu Province, was the second in which monks had upstaged government efforts to control tours of Tibetan areas for foreign journalists.

Last month, several monks in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, risked official punishment when they made an emotional appeal to foreign

journalists inside the Jokhang Monastery, one of the city’s holiest shrines.

The outburst on Wednesday occurred as authorities guided reporters through the Labrang Monastery. The tour was the first officially approved visit to Xiahe by foreign reporters since monks and other Tibetans in the city clashed with the police last month. During the tour, about 15 monks rushed out, waving a Tibetan flag, and approached a group of about 20 Chinese and foreign reporters.

“The Dalai Lama has to come back to Tibet,” one monk said, according to Reuters, which was invited on the tour. “We are not asking for Tibetan independence; we are just asking for human rights. We have no human rights now.”

Several monks draped their heads in robes, Reuters reported, possibly in an attempt to conceal their identities and avoid later punishment. The monks also said that local authorities were holding other monks and that armed plainclothes security officers were posted around the city.       more ...

Olympic Torch Goes Out, Briefly, in Paris

New York Times
By KATRIN BENNHOLD and ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: April 8, 2008

PARIS — China dubbed its Olympic torch relay the “Journey of Harmony,” a 21-nation promotional tour for the most expensive Games the world has seen and for a host nation eager to showcase its rising wealth and diplomatic clout.

But what was supposed to be a majestic procession through the French capital resulted in waves of chaos on Monday, as human rights groups used the event to assail China’s record on rights and make the Olympic Games an increasingly delicate political challenge for the governing Communist Party.

China has spent eight years and tens of billions of dollars preparing to host the Summer Games, which Beijing has envisioned as a kind of coming-of-age party to showcase its rapid growth. But the outbreak of violent unrest in Tibet and a continuing crackdown there by Chinese security forces has emboldened China’s critics, a diverse coalition of rights groups whose demands are often ignored in China and played down by Western leaders eager to promote Chinese trade and investment.     more ...

Father 'caught bird flu from son'

BBC News
Tuesday, 8 April 2008 09:02 UK

Tests on a father diagnosed with bird flu in China show he probably caught the disease from his dying son.  Scientists are concerned that if the virus evolves to pass easily from human to human millions could be at risk.  A genetic analysis of the Chinese case published in The Lancet found no evidence to suggest the virus had gained that ability.  But an expert has warned that failure to control outbreaks of disease in poultry is fuelling the risk to humans.  

Writing in The Lancet, Dr Jeremy Farrar, of Vietnam's Hospital for Tropical Diseases, said: "Whatever the underlying determinants, if we continue to experience widespread, uncontrolled outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry, the appearance of strains well adapted to human beings might just be matter of time."      more ...

In France, Olympic Torch Extinguished During Protests

By John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 7, 2008; 2:34 PM

PARIS, April 7 -- Protesters halted the Olympic torch relay in Paris Monday, forcing officials to extinguish the flame at least three times and carry the torch inside a bus for safety, despite a massive deployment of 3,000 police across the heart of the city.

The heavy security presence transformed the torch relay from a joyous celebration of the Olympics into a tense confrontation between police and demonstrators protesting China's crackdown on Tibet last month and its human rights record.

By late afternoon Paris time, with the relay hours behind schedule and facing continuous stops by protesters, officials gave up on finding a way to restart the procession. They said the torch would be carried by bus for the rest of the route, from the National Assembly building to the Stade de France sports complex, a distance of about 3.5 miles.

The decision was made by Olympic organizers and the Chinese Embassy, police in Paris said.

During the first part of the procession, athletes were surrounded by so much security they could barely run with the torch, and police scuffled with pro-Tibet demonstrators along much of the parade route.       more .....

Military Ransack Tibetan Temple in Sichuan Province, China

By Feng Changle
The Epoch Times
Apr 05, 2008

On 29 March 2008, the Chinese Communist Party's military police surrounded Kyidi Temple, the largest temple in the Aba autonomous region in Sichuan Province.

According to Mr. Sonam Dorje, Secretary General of the Tibet Religious Foundation of the Dalai Lama, the police broke into the temple in the early morning of 30 March and confiscated knives, swords, and arrows.

Mr. Sonam Dorje said, "In the morning on March 30, military police broke into the Temple and searched every monk's room. Afterwards, the police went to the Guardian Temple and confiscated exquisite divine instruments such as Tibetan knives, swords and arrows. These objects had been donated by the followers, but were taken as 'evidence.'"      more ...  
Click here to read this article in Chinese

China pay row pilots 'turn back'

A row over pay at several Chinese airlines has seen pilots disrupt flights, according to state media.

BBC News
Thursday, 3 April 2008 10:44 UK

At China Eastern Airlines, 14 pilots turned back mid-flight blaming bad weather, despite other aircraft travelling normally, the reports said.

And there are claims that other pilots co-ordinated "sick days" - with about 40 Shanghai Airlines crew not coming to work on one day last month.

Jail for Chinese rights activist

BBC News
Thursday, 3 April 2008 07:59 UK

A prominent activist who publicised human rights abuses across China has been convicted of subversion and jailed for three-and-a-half years.  Hu Jia, 34, was convicted of "inciting subversion of state power and the socialist system", his lawyer said.  He has long campaigned for the environment, religious freedom and for the rights of people with HIV and Aids.  His sentence comes a day after a rights group accused China of a campaign to silence dissent ahead of the Olympics.

The US was "dismayed" by the verdict, a spokeswoman for the US embassy in Beijing said, while the European Union called for Mr Hu's immediate release.  "We said very clearly before the trial that he should not have been detained in the first place and that he should be released and this remains our position," Beijing spokesman William Fingleton told the French news agency AFP.     more ...

Repression continues in China, six months before Olympic Games

When the International Olympic Committee assigned the 2008 summer Olympic Games to Beijing on 13 July 2001, the Chinese police were intensifying a crackdown on subversive elements, including Internet users and journalists. Six years later, nothing has changed. But despite the absence of any significant progress in free speech and human rights in China, the IOC’s members continue to turn a deaf ear to repeated appeals from international organisations that condemn the scale of the repression.

From the outset, Reporters Without Borders has been opposed to holding the Olympic Games to Beijing. Now, a year before the opening ceremony, it is clear the Chinese government still sees the media and Internet as strategic sectors that cannot be left to the “hostile forces” denounced by President Hu Jintao. The departments of propaganda and public security and the cyber-police, all conservative bastions, implement censorship with scrupulous care.

Around 30 journalists and 50 Internet users are currently detained in China. Some of them since the 1980s. The government blocks access to thousands for news websites. It jams the Chinese, Tibetan and Uyghur-language programmes of 10 international radio stations. After focusing on websites and chat forums, the authorities are now concentrating on blogs and video-sharing sites. China’s blog services incorporate all the filters that block keywords considered “subversive” by the censors. The law severely punishes “divulging state secrets,” “subversion” and “defamation” - charges that are regularly used to silence the most outspoken critics. Although the rules for foreign journalists have been relaxed, it is still impossible for the international media to employ Chinese journalists or to move about freely in Tibet and Xinjiang.      more ...

Brit spies confirm Dalai Lama's report of staged violence

Canada Free Press
By Gordon Thomas

Britain's GCHQ, the government communications agency that electronically monitors half the world from space, has confirmed the claim by the Dalai Lama that agents of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, the PLA, posing as monks, triggered the riots that have left hundreds of Tibetans dead or injured.

GCHQ analysts believe the decision was deliberately calculated by the Beijing leadership to provide an excuse to stamp out the simmering unrest in the region, which is already attracting unwelcome world attention in the run-up to the Olympic Games this summer.

For weeks there has been growing resentment in Lhasa, Tibet's capital, against minor actions taken by the Chinese authorities.

Increasingly, monks have led acts of civil disobedience, demanding the right to perform traditional incense burning rituals. With their demands go cries for the return of the Dalai Lama, the 14th to hold the high spiritual office.

Committed to teaching the tenets of his moral authority---peace and compassion---the Dalai Lama was 14 when the PLA invaded Tibet in 1950 and he was forced to flee to India from where he has run a relentless campaign against the harshness of Chinese rule.

But critics have objected to his attraction to film stars. Newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch has called him: "A very political monk in Gucci shoes."

Discovering that his supporters inside Tibet and China would become even more active in the months approaching the Olympic Games this summer, British intelligence officers in Beijing learned the ruling regime would seek an excuse to move and crush the present unrest.         more ...

Anti-Chinese cracks in Philippine rice bowls

Asia Times
By Donald Kirk
Apr 3, 2008

Anti-Chinese cracks in Philippine rice bowls:

Fast-rising rice prices in the Philippines are reinforcing the widespread belief that Filipino-Chinese rice barons are hoarding supplies in clandestine stockpiles around the country. The government has pledged to "hit the hoarders", but the issue continues to play into the deep anti-Chinese sentiments of a population that believes "rich Chinese" dominate just about every area of business and finance.

MANILA - Ask a woman named Cora why these days she has to spend so much more for rice for her food stand and family and she's got a fast racial response. "The Chinese are the ones," she said without hesitation. "They are handling all these things. They are the capitalists of the Philippines."

Shopping for the lowest prices in one of Manila's traditional markets, Cora blames "seven names" - the names of the Filipino-Chinese merchants who are widely accused of hoarding rice in order to reap higher and higher profits by driving up prices.     more ...

China’s Leader Orders Police to Ensure Olympic Security

The New York TimesBy HOWARD W. FRENCH
Published: April 2, 2008

SHANGHAI — The Chinese president, Hu Jintao, has ordered his nation’s security forces to place a top priority on the Olympic Games in August, saying that China’s international reputation is at stake.

China has increased its accusations that Tibetans are planning violent attacks in their quest for increased autonomy, which the Tibetans deny.

“Security must take priority,” Mr. Hu was quoted as saying in the People’s Armed Police News, published by China’s paramilitary police force. “Without security guarantees there cannot be a successful Olympic Games, and without security guarantees the national image will be lost.”

In one of the latest accusations, a spokesman for the Public Security Bureau, Wu Heping, said Tuesday: “To our knowledge, the next plan of the Tibetan independence forces is to organize suicide squads to launch violent attacks. They claimed that they fear neither bloodshed nor sacrifice.”

A senior official in the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala, India, immediately denied the Chinese accusations. “Tibetan exiles are 100 percent committed to nonviolence,” said the official, Prime Minister Samdhong Rinpoche. “But we fear that Chinese might masquerade as Tibetans and plan such attacks to give bad publicity to Tibetans.”       more ...

Beijing Steps Up Falun Gong Persecution Ahead of Olympics

Over 100 Falun Gong adherents reported tortured to death since January

By Caylan Ford
Epoch Times Staff
Apr 02, 2008

As the Chinese regime's violent repression continues in Tibet, another group claims they too are experiencing heightened persecution.

Representatives of the Falun Gong spiritual practice say that, since January of this year the Chinese regime has tortured over 100 Falun Gong adherents to death, mo